Zucchero di vetro
by FanSlewFantasy
Summary: Implied GerIta, Bondage, angst... not my normal stuff but you know. Italy has issues with Germanys porn collection, and neither know how to deal with that. Story is better than summary I hope. Short-ish. Don't like, don't read. ONESHOT


_It was a slow, painful process. _

_It started like a little prick at the nape of my neck. A curious eye falling on an item that made me want to retch. _

_It bloomed into pins and needles over my shoulder blades, tingling unpleasantly until I found myself compelled to look again, the sickness not fading at all._

_Soon, it felt like oil seeping in through pores and flowing in my veins. A macabre infatuation with the disgust it instilled inside of me, poisoning me slowly._

_Oil hardened painfully in my bones and blood turned to tar pooling beneath my skin. It bubbled, lumping and bruising, feeding off innocence and raping my heart over and over until the realisation that I was addicted to the sickness blindfolded my conscience and lead me into the dark. _

…

I fingered the spines of the magazines emotionlessly, a whole library of shame I should pretend I'd never seen. Maybe, once, it hadn't mattered. Maybe, once, it wasn't such a problem. What had changed? Why was there something just not sitting right on my shoulders?

I picked one of the books up and opened it. By now I was used to seeing this. Once upon a time I would have cried to see such awful sex, but these days the image of a woman bound and fucked till she bleed was one that filled me only with a dull resignation. My mouth grew dry; I swallowed and turned a few more pages.

Did he find these lamplight breasts appealing, I wondered. Was it the nipples, dark and erect, that peeked obscenely from beneath cruel leather straps, which were supposed to be attractive in these shots, or was it her face? The desperate begging for mercy expression that twisted otherwise beautiful features. Maybe it was the wrists, bound behind her back, or the jut of an anorexic hip in a body contorted inhumanly against a table clean. Whatever it was, I hated it to a point of indifference. I loathed these magazines coldly and I loathed those who enjoyed them. I just… I didn't understand.

Footsteps. I threw the book down, standing up and dusting off my jeans.

"Italia? Hello, are you home?"

"I'm in here." I called from the wardrobe, crossing my arms over my chest and not caring if I got in trouble for it. For being caught here again.

"Good, I need to talk to you about… what are you doing?"

"Just looking at Doitsu's magazines." without turning around I began repacking them in their boxes, not paying any attention to the careful indexes or week by week organisational system he had imposed. "Some more came in the mail today, and I thought I would put them away for you."

"Yes but Italia, its no help if you put them away wrong!" he pushed me aside and bent over, sorting carefully through and rearranging a few of the books. "I appreciate you trying to help me you know, but please, for god's sake, if you are going to help do it properly, okay?"

"Okay. Sorry." I stared at his back as he packed up, an odd despondent creak in my gut when I noticed his shirt. It was a good one, the one I had got him for Christmas last. He said he would never wear it, apparently it simply wasn't masculine. Yet that's the thing about Ludwig, is he can make anything handsome and manly, even if it is pale pink.

He sighed. "It's okay… also, please stay put of my magazines in future. They- hey, are you okay?" he hesitated when he turned back to me.

"Don't worry it's nothing."

"You look ill. Are you sure." Frowning, wearing an expression of genuine concern, he brushed my cheek and I jerked my face away.

"I'm fine."

…

I lay on the sofa, gazing numbly at the roof. I should have been doing drills, but the inclination was not arising. The inclination to do anything was becoming less and less forthcoming, actually. No motivation, no anything. Just a blank isolation filled with images of tortured flesh and perverted moans.

"Italia, are you sure you are okay?" he asked me again, setting down the steaming mug of hot chocolate he had made for me on the coffee table and stroking my hair. "You have been… less abrasive than usual lately."

"I'm fine." I told him again, trying not to meet flawless blue eyes. "I'm just tired."

Tired… I guess.

"Are you feeling ill?"

"… Sort of."

He drew a deep breath and fiddled with his iron cross awkwardly.

"Would you like a bath or something? Might make you feel better?"

"A bath would be nice." I reached for the hot drink. It was white chocolate, sweet as sweet and topped with slowly melting cream. He had even put some vanilla in there, the rich scent was nauseating. A single sip was enough to almost make me gag.

"Okay. Hang on then. I will call you when it's done."

He clomped away, boots hardly muffled by the carpet.

Outside, it began to rain.

…

"Doitsu, can I sleep with you again tonight?" I finished towelling my hair, dropping it on the floor and taking a seat on the edge of his bed.

"Do I have a choice in the matter?" he marked the page in his novel carefully and set it down on the bedside table. I shook my head and he relented, letting me slip beneath the blankets and slide my arms around his neck.

"I love you, Ludwig."

"Yes, yes, I know, I know." He reached across me and switched off the lamp. "Goodnight."

"Mmm. Goodnight." I kissed his lips briefly and he nuzzled my cheek, his tousled hair tickled my jaw.

Soon, he was asleep, the tug of air into his lungs raking a little in his throat, the soft snores resulting filling me with muted, bulky longing.

"Sweet dreams…" I murmured into his ear and tried to get comfortable against his chest. His arms around my body were secure and safe, the physical distance between us was marginal, but I didn't feel it. Not his smell that I had loved, not the warmth of his skin that used to give me reason to live. All I could feel was discontent, squatting toad-like and repulsive over my mood. He gave off such a sweet, ironic scent. Like weak mint and cherries. A little bit of vanilla even, all shadowed by the rich caramel sweat of a man. He was warm and had skin of luxurious softness. Pale and tissue like, voluptuous. He could have been a cherub, really, the patient pulse of his heart was blameless and whispering, and I found myself returning to that state of mind below apathy at the sound. That state of wincing pain and pinching pins piercing my lungs and scratching at my ribs. That one of ruffled discomfort, where I always felt I needed the bathroom and I feared the spill of tears with every word he said. In an attempt to stay away from that sensitive swollen place, I let my mind wander, ambling down crooked roads of envy and bitterness instead. The path was convoluted and I hadn't a map, but in the dark I let the feeling brew and churn in my gut, I let it strap my chest and chain up sensitivity, any ghosts of inadequacy preying on my defenceless emotion. .

Not as easy as it sounds. Tortuous night had a way with spiny thoughts, infiltrating even the most despondent of hearts and rendering muses agonised and restless. Maybe Romano was right, I thought. Maybe Ludwig did only keep me around because he felt sorry for me. Because I was weak.

_He likes rough edges, doesn't he? He likes misery and pain and humiliation. Imagine if you could be the bitch in boots. Would he pity you then?_

The patience he had always shown, albeit reluctantly, came to him as easy as breathing now, he didn't even seem to care what I did anymore. Normally, I suppose that would be a good thing. But for some reason it sat wrong on my chest. Loathsome and mocking, I began to fear that I had become something like a famine or a shortage of money to the man.

_If only you would _scream_ for him. Writhe and bleed and die for him, let him eat you and tear you up._

A mild inconvenience, but not something he could not just learn to live with until it goes away.

To be something as irrelevant and impermanent as a seasonal food shortage… a no-one…

A wooden thorn jammed straight into inflamed and infected feelings, I couldn't take it. There was no silence in sleep; there was no rest in his cosy bed.

I squirmed out of his arms; the cool air prickled my skin into goose pimples. The floor creaked as I tip-toed ever so softly over it, toward the wardrobe.

"Italia?" Germanys soft voice, I froze, and cleared my throat.

"Go back to sleep, Doitsu. I'm getting a drink."

He grunted and rolled over.

For two minutes I remained, paralyzed, waiting fro his soft snoring to resume. It did, I relaxed, and I hurried over on light feet, sliding the wardrobe door open and slipping inside.

The magazines. Again.

They were becoming an obsession, I realised as I crouched and drew a box from the bottom shelf beneath his coats. A wild infatuation with glossy obscenity and _distraction_. Yes, _distraction._ I didn't even _like _them, I just… fuck.

I plucked one out of the boxes and made myself comfortable, back against the doorframe. I reached for the open slider and pulled the door shut. Darkness was complete for a moment, before my hand splayed blindly above my head found the light switch. I clicked it, the lone dull bulb flicked into life.

Between a rack of coats and a hard wooden wall I sat and began reading, flicking through the pages of porn and imprinting each image as well as I could onto my mind. Leather, rusted metal, burning red skin and nails. I took in the form of every sick tool described by the pages, memorizing them, grossly enchanted and filled with cold fascination toward this… thing. It numbed me, I suppose. These cruel books killed the ache in my chest, replacing it with heavy rocks. It cauterized the burn in my sprit, and held me tight in oily ropes high above pain.

It wasn't only women, I noticed distantly, finishing the first magazine and mechanically reaching for the next. There were a lot of males in these magazines, chained up and ravished. It didn't make the situation any more or less okay, it was just something I observed… something that broke the monotony of page after page of splayed legs and period blood.

Although I was tired, although I felt my eyes grow heavy and my shoulders begin to ache, I kept going. Second magazine finished, I reached for another. And then another. Slowly, as the night wore on, I worked my way through the box. The light dried my eyes and blurred the images on the pages; each grotesque portrait began to blend into the next, a chill settled in my spine to accompany the sickness that had hardened like a stone in my stomach.

I forget when the nightmare on the pages merged with the chaos in my dreams.

…

"Are you okay?"

Fingertips caressed my lip, the scent of Ludwig all over me. His sheets…

"Italia."

Something warm and slightly damp heated the skin of my forehead. I groaned, my shoulders tight, my stomach oddly empty and raw. I moaned and rolled over, feeling heavy blankets shifted across my torso.

"Ludwig…"

"I'm here, Italy. You're all right. Go back to sleep."

"Where am I?"

"You're in bed. Relax. I'll not be mad at you yet." Something subtle and yielding caressed my cheek, warm arms caged me in and all was still. "When you wake up, we need to talk."

I hope I never wake up.

…

"But Italia, I… Why didn't you say something?" his frown, conflicted and confused.

"It doesn't matter."

And it didn't. Really.

"There was nothing to say."

"Well, yes, there was."

I looked away, at the squares of gold the evening cast on the walls of his room.

"If it was upsetting you this much you should have mentioned it. Or talked to me."

"It wasn't upsetting me."

"Then what, you like it? Do you want to try it?"

I shook my head.

Germany sighed and let himself flop backward on the bed. I shuffled my feet, pulling my legs to my chest to give him room. I would be embarrassed about the whole thing, passing into unconsciousness in a closet looking at porn, but I genuinely didn't care. I didn't feel embarrassed at all.

Still feeling ill, my head aching and my stomach churning, I let my eyes fall closed and listened to the sound of Gilbert's birds outside in the aviary.

This was awkward. This was difficult. This room felt jagged, filled with broken glass and gravel, I didn't have anything to say but I could sense he was dying to gush. To explode into a frantic spitting flurry of words apologetic and furious and even hurt.

This whole relationship was infected. An oozing wound. A cancer.

"I'm sorry Feli."

He broke the angular silence with a whisper.

"I will get rid of them tomorrow, I promise."

"Hmm."

I didn't particularly care.

"Italy are you mad at me?"

"I'm not mad."

"Are you sure?"

"I'm not mad." I wasn't mad. Not at all. I was just tired. Tired and blissfully grey and numb. The agonizing sharp silence was all external, this time. There was no pointy hurty rejection in my chest, so I didn't even care. "Why would I be mad?"

"Because this is my fault, isn't it?" he shuffled up on the bed and pulled my head to his chest. "I never… I should have stopped and thought of you." a small kiss brushed my temple. "I love you."

"hmm." I sighed and combed my hair off my face. "I love you too."

The words were empty and still, I found myself drifting far above them, saying them mechanically. Like a machine grinding out heartless cloned phrases, a habit. No longer even sensate to love.

"… no you don't." he nuzzled my neck. "I can see it in your eyes. You don't love me anymore."


End file.
